The third quar­ter “After­mar­ket Sup­pli­er Barom­e­ter” sur­vey just released by the Auto­mo­tive After­mar­ket Sup­pli­ers Asso­ci­a­tion pro­vides a glass half full, half emp­ty sce­nario. Mar­ket growth has slowed down from the rapid pace seen in the past few years, but the auto­mo­tive after­mar­ket is still keep­ing pace with the gen­er­al econ­o­my. The sur­vey results do show a lev­el of pes­simism, but a num­ber of pos­i­tive fac­tors are at play in the Q3 2012 AASA Barom­e­ter that will improve the aftermarket’s future mov­ing for­ward, accord­ing to Steve Hand­schuh, AASA pres­i­dent and COO.

Near­ly 40% of full-ser­vice after­mar­ket man­u­fac­tur­ers said the out­look for their busi­ness declined last quar­ter, while only 22% said it improved. How­ev­er, there are encour­ag­ing signs for the future, accord­ing to AASA, such as the growth rate of sup­pli­er sales into the orig­i­nal equip­ment ser­vice (OES) chan­nel dou­bling from Q2 2012. There are oth­er mar­ket trends to look at. “Vehi­cle age, a strong mar­ket dri­ver, is still at record lev­els,” Hand­schuh said. “There also is poten­tial for sub­stan­tial growth in miles dri­ven – a future tail­wind that few ana­lysts take into account in fore­casts.”